


Supernatural, Season 8, Episode 13, Everybody Hates Hitler

by TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Analysis, Episode Review, Episode: s08e13 Everybody Hates Hitler, Meta, Nonfiction, Season/Series 08, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23328004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer/pseuds/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer
Summary: Warning: Contains spoilers for the episode and later seasons. Complete.





	Supernatural, Season 8, Episode 13, Everybody Hates Hitler

Open to Vitsyebsk, Belarus in 1944.

A vehicle of some kind drives up to a building containing the Nazi’s bastardised version of the swastika.

The man greets another man with, “Heil Hitler,” but I don’t think he actually does the Nazi salute.

One of them explains his lateness by blaming the shoemaker’s daughter.

It’s not as if I actually expect gentlemanly behaviour from a soldier who supports the unlawful imprisonment, torture, and eventual total destruction of several large groups of people, but still, let it be pointed out this man is the complete opposite of a class act in every respect. Kissing and telling isn’t cool, and it especially isn’t during the pre-sexual revolution when women still had little in the way of protected rights.

The cad goes inside, and the other man tries to light a cigarette. His failure is possibly due to censor restrictions. Heavy footsteps approach him, and looking up, he screams.

Inside, the cad looks up, but before he can move, the now dead other man enters via the window.

The cad sounds an alarm.

Elsewhere, more Nazis are doing some sort of occult-type thing when they hear it. They barricade the room as they try to finish up. The others ready their weapons, the leader does more occult stuff and, at one point, he utters, “Damn you, sorcerers of Abraham.”

I have to wonder why no ever writes about the Romani, the homosexuals, the disabled, the criminals, or any of the other targeted using the preternatural against the Nazis. From what I understand, the Jews were the biggest target, and I don’t know for certain, but it wouldn’t surprise me if their death count was the highest. Yet, they’re supposedly the ones who have/had powerful, specialised divine intervention, elaborate secret societies, and so on in place.

A giant of a man enters. He’s immune to bullets, and he kills all but the leader. Finishing his occult thing, said leader disappear in magical flames.

In present day Lebanon, Kansas, the brothers pull up to the Men of Letters bunker. They turn on the power, and it’s revealed the bunker is huge. Dean dubs it a “bat cave”.

The next morning, Dean declares the water pressure marvellous.

Sam is curious how the bat cave has electricity and running water.

It was used in the 1940s. People had electricity and running water back then. Now, if they found IPhones and flat-screen HD TVs, I’d understand his puzzlement, but as it is, his curiosity is the strange part.

I suppose he could mean how it still has the above with no one paying any bills, but he’s the man who was placed under psychiatric hold, suddenly got well enough to be released, and helped admit a man who just showed up out of nowhere in his place. If he can accept this, it really shouldn’t be too hard to accept sometimes, companies overlook things, and sometimes, people are able to successfully steal cable, electricity, water, etc.

Suggesting Sam try not to geek out, Dean himself geeks out. Heh.

Over in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, at a library, a total disgrace of a librarian is rude to an elderly German rabbi.

After looking over a book, the rabbi tells TDOAL they must protect the book. He declares the thing/person following him is too close. Then, he asks for ten minutes, and TDOAL gives him eight minutes.

In German, the rabbi remarks, “I hope they pay you good to keep that bug up your tuchus.” Awesome.

Assuming the rabbi left after 8-10 minutes, it should still be daylight, but the next scene has the rabbi leaving the library at night.

A shadowy figure is shown watching him.

At a pub, he leaves a message for someone from a payphone. A man with glasses watches him from outside. After leaving the message, the rabbi goes to the window. He invites the suddenly unseen man to come in out of the cold to have a cup of coffee with his old enemy, “You Nazi piece of rubbish.”

In response, the rabbi bursts into flames. His last words are, “You Nazi pig!”

Two weeks later, at the bat cave, Dean has gotten back from visiting Kevin. Originally, I said they should really move Kevin into the bat cave, but seeing how well them doing so turned out…

Trying to be casual, Dean asks if Sam has heard anything from Cas. Sympathetic, Sam answers in the negative. He watches closely when he asks if Dean has heard anything.

Realising he wasn’t as casual as he could have been, Dean answers in the negative. Sam tells him about the rabbi. It turns out, he was a part of a group of rabbi saboteurs. Dean complains he just got back.

The next scene has Sam claiming to be a research associate to TDOAL. He asks to see the last thing the rabbi was working on.

At the bar, Dean is talking to two witnesses who were there when the rabbi was killed.

Interestingly, these two women are what I would normally dub to be shallow, but something I recently read hit me hard. Namely, just because something isn’t important to _you_ doesn’t mean it’s unimportant.

On some level, I already knew and believed this. Largely, I was raised on this belief, and I have tried my best to live by it, but I admit my own biases and prejudices have occasionally stopped me.

Showing they understand proper treatment of the elderly, they explain the rabbi was nice but kooky and would talk to anyone who listen, which was often them, about conspiracies, secret wars, and special Nazis necromancers. As they’re explaining this, they make some insightful comments.

As Dean’s talking to them, a somewhat scruffy man sits down nearby. His name will soon be revealed as Aaron, and here he gives a hand signal greeting when Dean looks at him.

At the library, the audience is shown the rabbi switched the ledger when Sam finds a book on bird watching.

Back at the bar, Dean brandishes his badge at the stranger. “Special Agent Bolan.”

Aaron declares he thought Dean was something along the lines of a headhunter.

Well, technically, the description could fit Dean, just not in the way it’s usually used.

“This is the second, maybe third time I’m seeing you today,” Dean says. “Why you following me, Gingerbread?”

Okay, ‘Gingerbread’ is too adorable for me not to use.

Acting embarrassed, Gingerbread asks if they didn’t have a thing earlier.

Starting to realise where this is going but not sure he’s actually right, Dean stutters somewhat in his asking for clarification.

Gingerbread explains he thought they had a moment, and Dean slowly pulls his badge back. Continuing, Gingerbread says he thought he’d wait until Dean’s meeting was over before approaching and- He doesn’t finish, but his possible meanings are incredibly clear.

“Yeah, uh, okay, but no,” Dean manages to get out. He comes across more flustered than actively disinterested. “Uh, no moment, so, uh. Federal Investigation.”

“Is that supposed to make you less interesting?”

Dean looks up, and Gingerbread apologises if he freaked Dean out.

“No. No. I’m- I’m not freaked out. It’s just, uh, you know, uh, federal investigation- thing. So. Uh. Okay.” His phone rings. “Citizen. As you were.”

He starts to leave, and Gingerbread says, “You have a good night.”

“You- you-” he bumps into a table, “have a- okay.”

I love this scene so much. Partly because it’s hilarious, partly because it provides an interesting look into Dean, and partly because the joke isn’t the straight hero getting uncomfortably hit on by a gay man.

The joke is the fact cool, confident, charmer Dean Winchester is hit on and flattered but has no idea how to handle it. He doesn’t handle it maliciously, but he does handle it awkwardly.

I think the scene would have been much harder to do with a female character, especially since many in the audience has seen Dean both charm and get rejected by women for years, but it wouldn’t have been impossible if they’d gotten the right actress and successfully shown why and how things were in play to make him so flustered.

The mere fact Aaron is a man does, in a way, show the how and why. Dean was shown being hit on by Boris, but Boris creeped out and made even a large chunk of the audience uncomfortable. There have been times when it could be argued Dean has flirted with men, but Dean’s a flirter. He’s flirted with little old ladies, kids, and even animals. His scenes with Ellie in Trial and Error explicitly showed his flirting with a person he finds sexually attractive doesn’t always equal a desire for sex with them.

However, Aaron is within Dean’s age group, attractive, and to Dean, he’s non-threatening. He followed Dean around, but he did so in public. He was explicit but not particularly aggressive in conveying his (supposed) interest, and once it was made clear Dean hadn’t been also conveying interest, he backed off.

As many people have noted, there are many ways Dean could have explicitly made his disinterest clear without being a jerk about it, but his dialogue doesn’t exactly convey disinterest. He says there was no moment (true), he’s on a case (true), he’s not freaked out (debatable), and, again, he’s on a case. Some part of him either realises or will realise once he goes over the exchange Gingerbread could have easily gotten the impression, if it weren’t for the case, he would be interested.

Outside, Dean talks to Sam over the phone. Bringing up the women he talked to, he’s careful to add how hot he found them.

Noticing someone might be following him, Sam alerts Dean to this fact.

“That’s weird. I thought I was being followed earlier. Turned out to be a gay thing.”

“What?”

Dean quickly changes the subject, and they agree to meet up.

Later, Sam is picking up his car keys, and Dean finds the giant from earlier behind some bushes. He throws Dean against the car, and a window shatters. Sam tries to attack him with a knife, but he’s immune to knives, too. He starts to lift Sam by the throat, but appearing, Gingerbread orders him to stand down.

He explains the giant is actually a golem. His golem, to be specific.

At the Gingerbread house, he explains the rabbi was his granddad, and he and the golem were following the brothers due to their work on the case. Dean establishes they definitely didn’t have a moment before explaining to Sam, “Told you I was being followed. He was my gay thing.”

Gingerbread and the golem are established to dislike one another, and Gingerbread starts to explain about his granddad’s secret society. However, the golem doesn’t take too kindly to this.

The brothers explain their granddad was a Man of Letters, and he becomes more receptive.

Outside, the Nazi watches the house.

Okay, going off-topic: Heinrich Himmler.

When I first wrote this, I talked about thinking I’d seen pictures of real Nazis with glasses when they were young and active in the war, but I wasn’t sure if I actually had or not. I don’t know if Himmler was the picture I saw in the past, and I think I might have seen other active Nazis wearing glasses, but now, I know for sure there was, at least, one active Nazi during the war who did wear glasses.

To explain why I find this so fascinating: I read a story about how every pair of glasses found at some concentration camp represented a dead person due to the fact needing corrective lenses is technically a disability, and the Nazis weren’t keen on letting the disabled ‘pollute’ the population.

I also once read a mind-opening comment about how people needing glasses/contacts is now so non-stigmatised, no one complains about people having visible assistive devices and most otherwise completely healthy people who need glasses/contacts would never label themselves as disabled.

On-topic, inside, it’s established Gingerbread wasn’t raised in the supernatural lifestyle. He and his parents both thought his grandfather’s stories were just the rabbi’s way of coping. However, after he died, he bequeathed the golem to Gingerbread. The golem promptly destroyed Gingerbread’s entertainment centre and waterbed.

Chiming in, the Golem is annoyed at Gingerbread’s lack of religious observance.

Gingerbread explains about the message his grandfather left him. It includes the set of numbers.

Realising about the book switch, Sam hustles out.

Dean smiles slightly at Gingerbread over Sam’s geekiness.

Dean’s behaviour during these scenes is interesting. He’s briefly put out to discover Gingerbread was simply tailing him, but this quickly gave way to relief and acceptance. Afterwards, there’s nothing really overt about it, but he does seem to be more smiley and personally interested in Gingerbread than he would usually be.

I’m not sure if I’d go as far as to say Dean is interested in Gingerbread, but I think, if he were more accepting of himself and weren’t in love with Cas, he would be. The best I can explain it is, sometimes, a person meets someone, and if circumstances were different, they’d be into the someone. However, circumstances aren’t different, and so, they do nice things for the someone, but they honestly don’t expect or want anything other than to leave a good impression and make the someone happy in a platonic way.

At the library, they break in, and Gingerbread asks if they just break into every place they go.

Dean makes a joke about their dad wanting them to have a solid career to fall back on if the hunting thing didn’t work out.

Finding the book, Sam is tranq’d. However, he still manages to fight the Nazi off and make it downstairs. Then, the Nazi does the same to Gingerbread, and Dean tells the golem they’ll both die if the necromancer Nazi isn’t caught. As he’s tending to them, the golem goes upstairs.

The Nazi tries to tranq him, but this doesn’t work. Dragging the Nazi downstairs, he snaps the Nazi’s neck, and Sam and Gingerbread get better.

Later, Gingerbread wakes up in the backseat of the Impala, and the golem explains the brothers saved his life. He sees them digging with a white-covered body on the ground near them. The golem explains they’re burying the Nazi’s body.

As the brothers get ready to set the body on fire, they discuss the golem. Sam asks if Dean thinks Gingerbread can get a handle on the golem.

He already has a handle. They don’t like one another, but the golem has followed every order he’s given.

Watching them burn the body, Gingerbread has the reasonable reaction of, “Oh my God, these guys are psychopaths.” Heh.

Later, at the Gingerbread house, Dean has brought coffee for everyone minus the golem. They talk about the ledger, and it’s established the golem was around during the war. Further talking reveals Aaron was given a book about the golem when he was thirteen, but later in high school, he used them to smoke.

Dean is like, ‘eh, let’s face it, I can’t judge,’ and Sam is silently judge-y.

Gingerbread emotionally asks the golem to just tell him what he needs to do, and the golem throws a temper tantrum about how it’s not his place to guide the rabbi.

Aaron isn’t a rabbi. He may or may not identify as religiously Jewish. He specifically said his parents tried to make sure he never got caught up in what they assumed to be his mentally ill grandfather’s fantasies. There’s some evidence his grandfather also thought it was best Gingerbread just believe they were stories since he apparently never did anything to prove to his grandson it was all real. It’s unlikely he did to Gingerbread’s parents, either; if he did, though, he still complied with their orders not to do the same with their son.

The golem wanders off, and Sam reveals some of the experiments were trying to bring Jewish and Romani prisoners back to life so that they could figure out how to bring Nazis back. It turns out they not only succeeded, they also made a list of the returned Nazis. They can be temporarily killed via a headshot, but to keep them permanently dead, the body needs to be burned within twelve hours.

At the library, two men arrive. They go inside discuss the dead, burnt Nazi. Some of the clay is discovered, and they realise the golem is back in business.

Back at the Gingerbread house, Dean is exasperatedly talking to Garth on the phone. He hangs up, and he and Sam discuss the fact they have no idea how to shut down the golem. Appearing, Gingerbread asks if this is the plan, “Taking down my golem?”

They both try to assure him they aren’t necessarily planning to do so, but as Dean explains, they’d feel better if they knew how to just in case.

Gingerbread demands to know what they think gives them the right to make such a decision, and Dean retorts, if they feel the need, they’ll find a way to take the right.

“Look, he may a pain in the ass, but he’s my responsibility,” Gingerbread says.

Sam points out the golem was built to be used in a time of war and that Gingerbread isn’t a soldier. Acknowledging this, Gingerbread shows how lost he is, and Dean looks at him in sympathy.

What I’m wondering is why the rabbi didn’t use the golem to protect himself.

Suddenly, the Nazis burst in, and the brothers try to protect Gingerbread. The Nazis get the upper hand, the Golem appears, and one of them appears and says, in German, “Clay of Adam, surrender your bond unto me!”

This causes the golem to diffuse.

Getting the golem to spit out a scroll, the Nazi helpfully explains to Gingerbread writing his (Aaron’s) name on the scroll is how Gingerbread was supposed to take complete control of the golem. Backhanding Gingerbread, he demands the brothers give up the location of the ledger.

Sam tells him to screw himself, and NM objects to the term ‘Nazi’.

I’m usually all for self-identification, but once a person was part of Hitler’s regime and killed, tortured, unjustly imprisoned, and did inhumane experiments on what the Nazi party labelled as inferiors, there’s really no escaping certain labels. ‘Nazi’ is one of the most mild.

As Sam and the man are talking, Dean sees a shotgun near Gingerbread. Dean nonverbally signals for him to get it, but Gingerbread makes clear he’s still not ready for any of this.

Both Jensen and Adam Rose do an excellent job with this moment.

As the man is being a smug, blathering villain and going through the ledger, Gingerbread picks up a piece of wood. He starts hitting the mooks, and this gives the brothers enough of a distraction to grab their guns. Both brothers shoot the man through the head.

Asking if Gingerbread is okay, Dean receives an affirmative.

Later, they go back to the Gingerbread house. The diffused golem is still right where they left him. They offer to take him, but Gingerbread writes his name on the scroll. There are other Nazi necromancers out there, his grandfather left him with an important mission, and he’s choosing to answer the call.

He puts the scroll in the golem’s mouth, and when the golem comes back to life, Aaron comments, “It looks like I’m the Judea Initiative, now.”

The golem bows his head.

Later, at the bat cave, Dean pours a drink for him and Sam. Making it clear he thinks Sam being a Man of Letters is a good thing, he sits down, they toast one another, and happy music plays in the background.

Fin.


End file.
